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Manohar initially sold only rare and out of print publications, but soon branched out into local sale/export of new books published in India, and then into publishing of scholarly works under its own imprint.

03 August, 2012

Ananda K. Coomaraswamy Essays on Music

Ananda K. Coomaraswamy

Essays on Music

By- Prem Lata Sharma (ed.)

Essays in Music
is seventeenth in the series of the Collected Works of Dr. Ananda K.
Coomaraswamy, in the IGNCA’s publication programme. These essays were published
in a few books, journals, etc., mostly in the early years of the twentieth
century.

Coomaraswamy held that music in countless ways had been
bound up with the Indian national culture, for it was the most universal
expression of emotion – religious, amorous or martial. Music belonged to every
part of life. The flute of Krishna, the vina of Sarasvati, the dance of
Shiva, the Gayatri as cosmic chant or music of the spheres; the hymns of
passionate adoration of the Southern Saivite, all these belong to the
association of music and religion.

In addition to the art music, he lays great emphasis on the
folk songs of agriculture and crafts. This is music serving to lighten heavy
labour, such as the songs of husbandmen, carters and boatmen. Music remained
too intimately associated with religion, with drama and with life, whether
courtly or popular, and was faithfully guarded by tradition.

Coomaraswamy was much against the harmonium and gramophone,
when compared to stringed instruments; even the piano, he held, was an inferior
instrument. Every time these mechanical instruments were used in place of man,
the Indian musician was degraded, his living was taken away from him and the
group soul of Indian life injured. Among musical instruments, he gave pride of
place to vina.

He firmly believed that the importance of music in education
can hardly be overestimated. He bemoaned that foreign (English) education had
paralyzed the living impulses of Indians, and driven India to a state of social
disintegration. He advocated that the restoration of Indian folk and art music
to its proper place in Indian education would result in the understanding of
the self-expression of India in her music.

Prem Lata Sharma, a distinguished scholar of
Musicology, Sanskrit and Hindi, was Chairperson of U.P. Sangita Nataka Academy,
Lucknow (1983-6), and Vice-Chancellor of the Indira Kala Sangita
Vishwavidyalaya, Khairagarh (M.P.), (1985-8). She was also selected as Fellow
of the Sangeet Natak Akademi, New Delhi, in 1992.